The Queen of the Mur de Huy
Watching Anna van der Breggen during the final 30 kilometres of Flèche Wallonne was a bit like watching an assassin prepare to kill someone in a movie. The Dutchwoman’s face was expressionless, her body barely moved an inch, her shoulders frozen, except for the constant turning of her legs on the pedals. While riders of the calibre of Annemiek van Vleuten and Elisa Longo Borghini visibly gritted their teeth and exhaled, their shoulders rocking as they attempted to break Van der Breggen before the Mur de Huy, the 31-year-old kept her gaze fixed low on the road in front of her, and simply followed every move. There was no inkling of emotion as to how she was feeling, or the effort she was exerting. She looked completely at ease and in control.
Kasia Niewiadoma tried to stop her, valiantly. The Pole, looking back in her best form this spring, was the only rider who could match Van der Breggen as she led the way up the 1.3km Mur spinning a low gear and high cadence, while everyone else was shed out of the back. Still, Niewiadoma was grinding compared to Van der Breggen’s gliding. As the gradient kicked up, nine, 10, 11, 12 per cent, through to 19 at its steepest middle section, Niewiadoma lined up shoulder to shoulder with Van der Breggen. It was a power play, an attempt to psych the defending champion out and show that she could be equalled. But even then Van der Breggen didn’t flinch. The only significant movement she made was when she rose out of the saddle at around 200 metres to go, and accelerated away to the line. There was nothing Niewiadoma, or anyone else, was able to do about it, as Van der Breggen claimed her historymaking seventh consecutive Flèche Wallonne victory.
Van der Breggen’s career was already made up of a string of remarkable performances and race records - her double at the World Championships in the road race and time trial last year being a classic case and point. Yet her winning streak at Flèche is the peak. That Van der Breggen had won six consecutive editions of the Belgian classic before this year’s race had begun is something unparalleled in the modern era of the sport. To then win a seventh is something no rider, male or female had ever done before in a one-day race. Sean Kelly won seven GC titles at Paris-Nice in a row, but that was a stage race, and Jacques Anquetil won nine editions of GP des Nations in the 1950s, but only six of those were consecutive, while Gianbattista Baronchelli also won six editions of the Giro dell’Appennino between 1977 and 1982. The closest comparison in terms of consecutive one-day wins during the last 20 years is Alejando Valverde’s four in the men’s edition of Flèche, between 2014 and 2017 - three short of Van der Breggen.
Flèche Wallonne is a race criticised for its predictability. No matter the course and the kilometres that come before, the men’s and women’s races are defined
by the final sprint up the Mur de Huy. Van der Breggen’s success here made the race outcome even more inevitable. You have to go back to 2014 to find a different winner, a time when many of her rivals in the group that entered the climb weren’t even racing as pros yet. That sense of inevitability when Van der Breggen raced here, while predictable, is also what makes her achievement impressive. We all knew she was likely to win, and still she went ahead and did it.
Van der Breggen is retiring at the end of this year, and a new era will begin at Flèche in 2022. “Next time, I won’t bother the girls any more. It’s up to somebody else now,” she said, when speaking after the podium celebrations. But a piece of this race, in this part of the Ardennes, will always belong to Anna van der Breggen.